Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow

I just posted a comment on your blog. I saw this article as well, and thought, "well that is pretty cool". I agree, this is just what the US needs to continue to push down marathon times. If we want to contend for medals and wins, our marathon times need to be in the 2:07/2:08 range.

I am interested to see if it will really help, or if they soften up again when they only get 40 guys in the 2012 trials. I like the idea of raising the bar, but last time the result was a B standard because the bar was a bit too high. I think you will be where you need to be in 4 years though.

Interestingly, in 1984 the standard was 2:19-ish, and 200 people qualified.

While I generally agree with the changes and with Paul’s sentiments, keep in mind that Brian Sell would not have qualified for the 2004 Trials under these new rules. His 2004 qualifying time was 2:19:59. So you’re looking at a guy who is now an Olympian who may have never kept running had the time been cranked down to 2:19. My only worry is that this could limit the talent pool in American running and maybe put us back to the dark years of the 90s. We should be doing everything we can to foster growth in the sport not limit it.

One other thought…this would also eliminate the Twin Cities Marathon which has hosted several US Marathon Championships including 2007 and 2008 and was the fourth largest source of of this year’s Trials qualifiers (14). They may end up exempting the course, but I don’t like a few guys determining which courses are OK and which aren’t Either go by the US/World-record standard or don’t.

I have some of the same worries as Sean - I'm not convinced that this is all-in-all a good thing.

In all honesty, somebody who cannot break 2:19 on a record eligible course, or demonstrate decent speed in a shorter race, has less chance of making the team than winning a lottery. That said, something needs to be done to nourish those runners, to give them something to strive for, to provide growth opportunities. Even if they themselves never break 2:20 with the best possible training, what they accomplish trying creates a heritage for their family, friends, neighbors, etc, and often results in somebody with more talent doing the same thing and becoming a sub-2:10 marathoner. If we want to see US dominate in the world marathon scene, we need to give as many US guys as possible a chance to lay everything on the line for a few years to try to reach their very best marathon performance. Keeping the OTQ standards low accomplished that to an extent in a weird way by giving non-Olympic caliber performances the pre-Olympic glory, which rings a bell with the American public. I did not like that substitute, I like to keep things honest. The Soviet Union recognized the need and accomplished this in its own weird way by providing under-the-table support to a large variety of athletes in different forms - e.g a guy would be officially a full-time factory employee, but he would only come to get his pay check, and his real job was to train and to race. I do not like this setup either due to its under-the-table nature.

But we do need something straight and honest to support the striving athletes. We as a nation have plenty of money, a lot being wasted, the problem is to convince those who have it to invest it properly. The key would be educating the public about the sport and its benefits. All of us on FRB can do our part.

I was thinking that about Twin Cities as well. I guarantee they will exempt it, along with NYC and Boston, but Sean raises a good point about "validity" of courses being declared by a few people.

Sasha's sentiments are similar to many put out on the LetsRun thread (with less swearing). I agree that there needs to be increased incentives for the 2:20-2:25 crowd. At the same time, in 1984 over 200 people qualified with a standard of 2:19:03 (or something like that). Why can't we do that again? Why can't 2:19 become the new 2:22? It will take continued growth of grassroots programs to do this, though, and ways to pump money into the sport. Perhaps putting increased emphasis into National Championship races (which have much lower time standards) could help. It should be an interesting 4 years.

One other note I made elsewhere...Jason Lehmkuhle, the 5th place finisher and second runner-up in this year's Trials would NOT have qualified for the Trials under the new standard. His time in TC in 2006 was 2:19:03. He would have had to either appeal or run another race to qualify. My point I guess is that I hope we aren't raising the bar too quickly. As a country, we've had a couple good years and one great Trials. Perhaps we should get a few more under our belt before we start dismissing the Brian Sells (3rd place) and Jason Lehmkuhles (5th place). In fact, if you go back to 2004, Trent Briney is the poster child for "sub-elites" who can do something special. He qualified in a time of 2:21:10 and finished in 4th place that year in a truly remarkable time of 2:12:35. He was one second per mile away from being an Olympian. The bigger question for me is which does more damage to the sport: having "too few" in the Trials or "too many."

Sean - actually Lehmkuhle WOULD have qualified with his half marathon time at Houston. And it's hard to say if Sell or Briney would have made it or not. I imagine a 2:19 standard would have influenced all of their decision-making and training in the years preceding the trials. Hard to say.

Arguably, there may have been some 2:22:10 guy out there who could have busted off a 2:15 at trials. Or everyone who tried to qualify at Chicago this year. But they never got the chance either. Wherever you draw the line, it is still a line that includes some people and excludes others.

Brian Sell would have qualified with his 1:03:53 half. Trent Briney would have been very close with a 1:05:04 half, and had he known that a sub-1:05 half would qualify him, he would have raced enough of those in good enough conditions to actually break 1:05.

If I ran some weird insurance against surprise performance business when I had to pay $1 million dollars for every serious marathon breakthrough (e.g a 2:19 or slower guy running 2:12), I would most definitely hedge my bets with a small print clause that would exclude the guys who have run a sub-28:30 10 K or a sub-1:05 half.

USATF has placed the dagger in the right place, right in the heart. Those amazing marathon breakthroughs we have seen are merely the result of a guy with speed starting to train properly for endurance. I do not know of any precedents of a guy without speed getting enough of it to be world-class competitive. This is not to say that such runners should give up hope, or that it is right to pass degrees to label them as perpetual losers. Rather, this is to show that USATF chose a path of lesser resistance - focus on those who will most definitely have a shot if they just apply the very well known training methods. This requires absolutely no investment into the sport on their part - just pick up the low hanging fruit of the talent pool. I want to see something different. How about a real challenge? Can you take a guy that has no natural speed on the surface, dig deep, and help him develop it?

But if all we're looking for is 10-20 guys who can run sub 2:15 then let's set the bar there or even at the 2:14 olympic qualifying mark? Why bother with the rif raf who run a pedestrian 2:15? If the Trials is only about selecting the top three runners, then run the 10 fastest guys and take the winners from there. No need to put on a big show. No need to pay for a bunch of pedestrians to come run your marathon. Security is easier. Let Brian, Jason and Trent and all those like them "earn" their spot into the Trials by being a Top 10 US marathoner before they can have their shot at glory.

The problem with picking any time is that it's arbitrary and now the arbitrary shrunk this year's field by half.

I'm a marketing guy. If I'm the marketing guy for USATF, do I want 40-50 guys running down Times Square at 7:35 in the morning or do I want 100 or 150 or even 200 of the country's fastest marathoners on that TV screen? What is better for the sport? I know they would love to have the entire Trials boradcast on TV. That will not happen if the elite pool gets smaller and smaller. It's not good TV.

One other thought...does everyone remember that spread in Runner's World on all the no-names who qualified for the Trials and their stories? That was far more inspiring and better for the sport than the pages which preceded it about the guys favored to win.

For the average marathoner, qualifying for Boston is the ultimate goal. For the elite or sub-elite, it's the Olympic Trials. What will never be known is how many of this country's future distance just got cut out of the picture by this decision.

I just don't see the harm in leaving the bar at 2:22 for another Olympic cycle until we are more certain that the US actually has a decent pool of marathoners that *might* break the top 10 in the world.

So I just did some math and measuring and it would appear that TC may actually qualify under the new standard. Assuming they measure the 30% as the crow flies, my calculations have the start at 7.67 miles from the finish which is less than the 7.86 allowed. That's likely not an accident. BTW...the allowed drop appears to be 138.4 feet. Is there even a one-kilomter stretch on the back half of st. george that would meet the new standard?